(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
----brought to you by the Catchup Advisory Board.( MUSIC)
SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. The upstairs toilet stopped running and we changed our last name and phone number so the children's credit card company no longer pesters us, and any day now it's going to snow and then it won't matter anymore about the backyard. And then I came home the other day to find Jim still in bed. Jim? What's wrong? Didn't you go to work?
TR: Not yet. What time is it?
SS: It's six p.m.
TR: Wow, time sure flies when you're clinically depressed. Well, I'll give it another try tomorrow.
SS: What's wrong, honey?
TR: I guess I just don't understand what's going on in this country, Barb.
SS: What is it?
TR: I looked outside, I thought I saw someone in a mummy costume. Turned out it was our mailman. I read in the paper the postal service is going to start irradiating the mail. I talked to the neighbors, for trick-or-treats, they're putting out a big bowl of Cipro. It's just one thing after another.
SS: But we have to get back to normal life, Jim. The president said so.
TR: And then tonight we go off Daylight Savings Time.
SS: We'll get an extra hour.
TR: It'll take me an hour just to turn back the clock on the VCR. ---- I don't know.
SS: You know what you need right now?
TR: I need to turn the clock way back---- say, 1975.
SS: No, you need ketchup. Only ketchup has natural mellowing agents that help assuage feelings of inadequacy and make a person feel chipper and positive.
TR: Really?
SS: C'mon, let's rustle you up some ketchup 'n eggs.
RD:
Rocky mountain sunset, valleys filled with fog,
Campfire blazing, sparks fly from a log,
Red clouds at evening, like ketchup on a dog.
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
© Garrison Keillor 2001